Set Fire to the Rain
by Morganel
Summary: The war is over. May wonders never cease. Let all the senses be dulled except vision, never vision, because nothing could take away the wonder of this moment, lest sight admit defeat. Alicia's last moments of recollection at the end of the war in Somali.


I'd thought Earth had lost all her beauty. All the purity had gone. Gone with the green and gone with blue skies. Gone with the warm feeling you get when you hold a new born baby, replaced with a feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach. This isn't Earth's beauty, it's beauty, caused by Mother Earth's death, caused by killers, who killed her and so many others, ending with me, the killer who created some beauty.

My hair is loose around my shoulders. The elastic must have fallen out after the last explosion. That same explosion did something to my hearing, because I'm spinning, in slow motion, and there's an underwater sense to the whole scene before me.

"_The war is over!"_ That's what stopped me. The last thing I heard in the midst of all the destruction, the explosion made me stumble, my fingers squeezed, firing the explosive straight up into the air. Underwater. That's how everything sounds. I'm not dizzy. I just watch the sky almost in a daze and I know I have an expression of wonder on my face when the thing explodes sending and cloud of fire through the rain.

This is the beauty I'm seeing now. The rain didn't stop the flames, no; the rain isn't just water anymore. It ignites, and my mouth falls open and my eyes widen with a childish shock I haven't felt since my first fire-works show. It doesn't touch us. The drops burn out at our shoulders. For a mile, in all directions it lit with flames.

I set fire to the rain. I realize that the drops on my face are from tears. I didn't realize I want crying. I can see some soldiers littered along the gravelly war ground staring up in wonder. He's next to me, as much in awe as I am. Tears streak his face, cut through the dirt both of us are covered in. We just watch. Soundlessly, wordlessly, awed, this is purely visual. I see soldiers falling to their knees more tears on their cheeks. _Relief._ I feel it in myself. I see their walls crumbling, the ones I know I've built up for myself. I feel mine crumble with the weight being lifted off of my shoulders. The weight held them strong. As long as the weight remained I had to remains. I can't see well through my tears but the bright orange is beautiful even obscured. Like when lights are out of focus in photographs.

My senses were dulled by the explosion. I'm in a trance, one I wouldn't mind never coming out of. I feel the impact more than anything three small explosions right to my chest. I only look down, to where my hands have already come up to the wounds. They already glisten with red. I just stare. The beauty above me reflecting on my blood covered hands mesmerize me more than the show above me. He grips my forearms and I look up at him. His eyes are swimming with tears. I'm lost in them too, because the rain aflame above our heads...It's in his eyes, it can't more perfectly be reflected anywhere but. My hands grip his arms in return but my eyes never leave his. My hands are strong but my legs are weak. A lost gap of time.

I'm on my back. Against the gravel, he's above me, the very low, muffled sounds of his voice reach my ears but this is not about hearing. My gaze is fixed on the sky on the rain that is still burning, that is still alive with flame. Out of focus but still mesmerizing. He's pushing down on my chest. A beat. He's giving me a heartbeat. His hands holding my head, pinching my nose and his mouth covering mine to breath for me. My sense of feel is dulled. I don't understand how I'm still aware. But I'm still aware. Still gazing up at the flame filled sky, with glazed over eyes.

He's trying to save my life. I'm not hurting. There is too much beauty with this one sense that none of the others even matter.

This could be the last thing I see. I wouldn't mind. So many important things are dead inside me already.

But he's screaming my name, my name, telling me to stay alive.

So I will. I'll stay alive because otherwise...

I won't ever witness beauty again.


End file.
